The Quick Draw
by paper-fires
Summary: Fifteen hundred years, a span of time that sees an infinite number of changes, victories, defeats, and impossibilities. Their love should not have happened, should not have come to be, she shouldn't even have been born. Through the ways of magic and ancient power, their lives are thrown to the winds by unknown hands. It's up to them to hold on to their lives, and each other.
1. Chapter 1

Mitsuko found him, fallen in the snow and unresponsive to her shouts, staining the new snow a horrid red.

She hadn't thought her morning walk would be much different from most days. A normal outing to enjoy the cold forest and watch the dogs run about. Most days she stuck to her self-made path, unwilling to trudge through unwalked snow that could be deceptively deep. There were mornings where she would strap on a set of snow shoes and venture through other parts of the forests, generally for reasons similar to why she was carrying an axe today.

She'd left the cabin, snow shoes on, dogs at her side and pulling an empty sled save for a single axe, and the walking staff in her hand a familiar weight that reassured her that her search for fire wood was to be a success. Her stock pile was beginning to look small, and she loathed to be left in house without heat in January.

Argen and Caes could not run freely today, the sled behind them a clear message that they had a job to do. Mitsuko knew her father's dogs were not terribly fond of the harnesses that confined them, but they did appreciate that the given chore would tire them more than their regular daily tasks. The huskies were both energetic, and once upon a time Mitsuko would have loved to run with them.

Then again, in another story, these dogs would never have been left in her care. As much as she'd come to love the animals, she wondered how much would be different had that other story played out. Would the past eight months have been as arduous and lonely? Her step mother would not be any more unfriendly than normal, but at least she'd get to see her brothers.

The dogs had suddenly began barking, not the playful yips of some roughhousing, but the snarls and warning calls that immediately drew her attention from the barren treetops to a figure on the ground. There was no movement from the person there, and Mitsuko wondered if they were dead.

Stepping forward and falling to her knees, it became easier to see that it was a man lying there, covered in leather, metal and blood. His face was pale, contrasting the black tattoos on his cheekbones, caused by the cold and Mitsuko also guessed at blood loss. The dark haired woman rolled the man onto his back from his side, noting the vest of hard leather and ordered rows of metal rings. There was something sticking out of his shoulder as well as his thigh, it resembled a thick broken twig.

Tilting his chin up and head back with her hands, Mitsuko bent over him, letting her ear hover over his nose and staring down the length of his still body. _Don't be dead_. She felt a soft push of air against her cheek and heard the faintest of breathing. His chest wasn't moving much, but that may have been due to the heavy layers he wore.

Pulling herself back up, she checked him over for injuries. There was no blood on or near his head save for flecks across his cheek in a splatter pattern. Blood seeped through his grimy clothing from a number of cuts and lesions below, and Mitsuko worried as to how deep they were. They were nowhere near a town or city with an actual hospital or doctor, and with the coming snowstorm there wouldn't be time to get to one anyway. She could only hope, for his sake, that the wounds weren't terribly bad. Though for all she knew his neck could be broken.

_I'm not a doctor, what do I do?_

Argen and Caes came near, sled trailing behind them, and nudging their faces against her arms which now fell limp at her sides.

"I need to do something, eh? Won't let me leave him here to die?" Caes swished his tail and Mitsuko looked to the sled behind them. They could pull him, and even her if they went slow enough. "You mutts up to it?" Their responsive barks had Mitsuko wondering if they truly did understand her.

The task of moving the limp man was a difficult one. She didn't want to jostle him unnecessarily, but he was heavy and she was not one of great strength. Fiddling with the clasps of his dark cloak, she freed him of that and began relocating him to the sled.

Hands hooked under and over the uninjured shoulder, Mitsuko wished that she had spent more time trying to keep fit. It was slow going, dragging him all of two feet to the sled, streaks of red left in their wake, and maneuvering him into the basket. Mitsuko suspected that if he were awake, the amount of bumping around would have sent him back into unconsciousness.

Once he was settled on the sled, Mitsuko went back to grab his cloak from where she'd discarded it carelessly near the base of a tree. Before she got to it she noticed a long piece of metal in the snow, coated in blood. The man was a swordsman, it seemed. But the man hadn't cut himself open with his own sword, and so that was another being's blood upon it. Mitsuko snatched up both the weapon and the cloak, hurrying back to the sled, worried that whoever the man had been attacking may return. She didn't see a second body, so perhaps the mysterious other was still walking about.

Draping the cloak over the man to at least try and keep off the cold, Mitsuko tossed her walking staff and the sword on top of him and stood on the back of the sled. At the very least, the cold would slow his bleeding, but that came with its own down sides.

With one last cursory look around, she said to her dogs, "_Marche_."

And they were off.

There would be no way for Mitsuko to get the man onto her bed or even the couch. He was too heavy, and she was tired, cold, and not strong enough.

So she set him down on the floor between the couch and the fireplace in the corner of the room. The rug would be a wet bloody mess later, but that was by no means the important detail in this scenario.

Argen and Caes were curled in their beds by the back doors, watching her and their rescue.

Before starting anything, Mitsuko removed her heavy outwear wear, tossing it aside where it wouldn't get in the way. Immediately she went about starting up the fire. There were embers within, but she wanted a roaring fire for the man who was no doubt in the process of thawing.

Once that was complete, she got to her feet and sped over to the bookcase in the front hall, scanning the rows of books behind the occasional knick-knack for one specific volume. Finding it, she pulled it out by the top edge of the binding, grabbed it hastily and placed it on the couch seat.

And then she stopped, staring down at the situation by her feet. She had to undress him, but she didn't know where to start. His clothes were different from what she knew. An older, more practical style. Medieval, almost, but not quite.

"Just no zippers, then" she murmured to herself.

From her pocket, she retrieved a pocket knife, deciding that he could be angry about his ruined clothing later. She cut the ties at his sides that held the strange armor-vest to him and wrestled it off of him. Which became a problem when she remembered the stick lodged in his shoulder.

Up and rushing to the basement in an instant, she returned with a plastic box filled with fish lures, bait, fishing line, but most needed at the moment – a pair of pliers. With it she cut down the stick to a stump and resumed the removal of the vest thing. Underneath was a leather outer coat of leather, which merely required the removal of his belt and then once more she manhandled him out of the clothing piece and simply cut off the loose shirt beneath it.

She could feel every second sliding past them and was ever conscious of the blood on the palms of her hands.

There was a long cut down his chest, the stick in his shoulder, several cuts and abrasions down his arms and torso, and also the other stick that protruded from his leg.

Mitsuko took the book from the couch, forcing herself to ignore the bloody fingerprints she was leaving, and flipped through the book of first aid and wound care. She needed someone to tell her what to do, but the man was of no use in his state, and the dogs were content to rest and watch from their beds.

Mitsuko disliked being in charge.

She got the rubbing alcohol and iodine from the bathroom along with a bucket of water, some rags, and the medical kit. The first thing to enter her mind was to clean each open sore, which she ended up doing primarily with the water and rubbing alcohol – the iodine quickly running out with so little in it to begin with. Following that, she wrapped the smaller abrasions and cuts in gauze, each at least the size of a quarter or as long as her thumb respectively.

Next she was to deal with the long angry line of red that she knew she probably should have started with, but couldn't bring herself to. She'd have to stitch that up. There was a needle in the med kit, but the only thread in the house was the fishing line. Mitsuko felt sick.

A presence came to her side, and then a head resting in her lap.

"Argen." The husky looked up at her, and Mitsuko took in a steadying breath.

The needle piercing warming flesh was disturbing, and Mitsuko had only just learned the bare essentials of this from an old manual. The only thing keeping her going was the black and white dog at her side. She didn't know how long it took her to make the last stitch, nor did she care. That part was done.

Now the sticks in the man's shoulder and thigh.

Her hands began working at the shoulder, fingers trembling slightly, and fumbling with the bit of wood. Her fingers dug into the wound, pinching around the stick, and slowly wiggled it out. The man did not make so much as a sound, still in complete oblivion.

Mitsuko however, was staring wide-eyed at the crimson bit of wood in her hand. It wasn't just wood. There was metal at the end. An arrow head.

"Someone shot you with an arrow," she whispered to the indifferent man. Her eyes slid to his thigh, where there was certainly another arrow embedded in him. She squeezed her eyes shut, willing herself to breathe for a minute. Then she opened her eyes and went on with her patchwork on the man.

The shoulder wound was closed with more fishing line, and the entire process repeated with the arrow in his leg. The only difference there was that she had to cut away some of the fabric of his pants to allow her to get to the wound. The man was still alive, and he did not seem the usual trespassing hunter. She'd allow him his dignity upon waking and reduce whatever wrath may be set on her if it came to that.

With everything bandaged and tended to, Mitsuko pulled off his sodden boots and socks, snagged the comforter from her room, set it down on the floor and endeavored to drag him onto it. She mostly succeeded, and then placed a quilt over him, deciding at the last moment to take a throw pillow and stick it under his head.

Injured guest attended to, Mitsuko went into the bathroom, stripped, and spent an hour soaking under a stream of hot water. She didn't often allow herself the indulgence of long showers, but she felt today was a good exception. Feeling the water start to lose its heat, she stopped the flow and grabbed a towel to dry herself. She went through her dressing routine distractedly—her mind thinking only of the man on her living room floor.

Who was he? A man with an enemy who wielded a bow and deadly arrows. A man with a blood coated sword. A man who dressed as one might if living in a far simpler world.

Absently she noted that she'd put on jeans and a baggy sweater.

Where did he come from?

Why was he in the forest?

Why had he been shot?

Why was she the one dealing with all this?

Letting out a frustrated huff, she dragged her hands over her face before deciding some hot chocolate would be a good idea.


	2. Chapter 2

He felt warm, wrapped in a shell of comforting heat that eased the ache of his body. There was the soreness of the wounds dealt to him by the Woads, but also a deep thrum that radiated its own distinct discomfort. Tristan longed to remain in the shelter of blankets, eyes closed and in denial of anything around him. But he knew that the blankets were too soft and too sweet smelling. The itch in his shoulder was not only the arrow wound but also the tight wrappings around it. Not to mention that there was someone breathing to his right.

Someone had tended to his injuries, and instinct told Tristan that he was not safe.

The scout opened his eyes, bleary from his extended state of unconsciousness, and slowly he sat up. The simple action hurt, pain striking hot up his arms and through the tensing muscles around his gut. He breathed deeply, in once and out once, before taking in his surroundings. His first cursory glance told him that the room was tidy and clean, a case of books facing him and he knew who ever lived here was educated.

Turning his head to the right, he discovered that what he'd initially thought was a person, was in truth a dog. Though Tristan thought it looked more wolf than dog, staring at him from the over-large seat, mismatched eyes taking in every movement he made. The knight wondered if the wolf-dog would attack him. He didn't have anything to defend himself with. Tristan was acutely aware of his bare torso and current injuries. He didn't think he'd be able to win a wrestling match if it came down to it.

The beast let out a bark, rough and tapering off into a growl.

The sound of feet from nearby registered in Tristan's ear and he threw off the soft blanket, freeing himself, and jumping back to the wall in a crouch. The taste of blood was warm and mildly nauseating as he bit his tongue to suppress a groan of pain. In a short moment his eyes fell on another wolf-dog of different coloring, who had leapt up over the back of the seat to join its friend. And then the person standing behind the animals. Out of habit, Tristan glared.

With but a single look at the woman before him, Tristan knew something was very wrong.

She was not a Woad, posture too sloppy for their warrior peoples. Most definitely no Saxon, hair far too dark and features too slim. He could find no Roman resemblance in her face and she was not of his Sarmatian homeland. Neither tall nor short. A single smooth cover of skin over each eyelid. Hair smooth and straight as the flat of his sword. She resembled nothing he'd ever seen before.

It vexed him.

He couldn't place where she was from. Which subsequently led to his inability to know where he was.

"Where am I, woman?" he demanded harshly, finding his voice to be more a low grumble than the shout he'd wanted. Still, she flinched, and Tristan was satisfied that at the very least she feared him. He had some advantage.

The dogs growled at him, and he met them with a scowl before returning his sights to the woman.

"Answer me."

Though there was fear etched over her fair face, new lines formed between thin eyebrows, and he recognized confusion.

"Where am I?" he asked, his words slower and voice a sliver softer.

Her mouth moved, sounds tumbling out in a cadence and rhythm unfamiliar to him. Her words held no meaning, and seemed to flow from her lips like a steady stream of murky water. The measure shifted, the sound changing, and still he could not find sense in her tongue. He muttered a curse. The woman sighed, coming to the same conclusion about their communication ability. Of course someone so different would speak another language.

She was trying to keep calm, and Tristan wasn't certain if it was to keep him from causing her bodily harm or for her own mental state. As it was, she'd quieted and her expression was lost between exasperation and tiredness. The woman moved to sit on the arm of the seat, moving slowly the entire way, and Tristan wished that he could laugh. He was being treated like some scared forest creature that was ready to attack or run in an instant.

Neither tried to waste more words in useless languages, and they simply stared at each other for a time—observing, studying, learning. He watched as she played with the sleeve of her thick shirt. It was of fine quality, though he could see that it was worn often, from the hems that were showing signs of fraying. Her legs were not hidden in the fabric of a skirt, but in blue trousers that did not hide her form. Such an odd color. There were no weapons that he could see on her, though he imagined there might be a knife hidden up one of the loose green sleeves.

Tristan remembered that he still wasn't wearing a shirt, and looked down at the gift the Woad had left him. The gash was closed with a long line of stitches, but they were not covered. He must have been too heavy for her to keep upright and also bandage properly.

The dark haired woman stood, and Tristan noticed for the first time as she walked back to the room she'd come in from, that she limped. She favored the right leg, and Tristan wondered how she'd gotten him into the house.

She brought him back a shirt, hardly showing signs of ever having been worn before. Tristan gave her a nod, not quite a thank you. The woman smiled briefly, leaving once more, though this time only to the other end of the room where a heavy wooden table stood. Past that there were a number of fixtures that he did not recognize.

The shirt was comfortable, unfamiliar. The fabric felt soft against his skin, incredibly so, and Tristan could not recall ever having worn something so forgiving over his scarred body. He didn't know if this was her own shirt, but her smaller frame certainly would not have fit his own and would account for how it fit. It was tight, not so much that it clung to him with its own grip, but it was more fitted than his usual clothing. The scout tested his range of motion, glad and perplexed by the stretch the shirt allowed. Though he was displeased with how it went up and exposed his abdomen when he attempted putting his arms above his head. He stopped short when his shoulder protested with anger.

Despite having covered his upper body, Tristan felt a chill run through him. He shifted closer to the fire, placing himself in its warmth and wishing he had his own clothes. A part of him believed that he'd continue to feel cold even with more layers in a way beyond the imagined frost of the air.

There was not much for him to do. He wasn't sure if he was a prisoner here, but he had little strength and would have to wait and recover before doing anything drastic. Tristan hoped that such circumstances would not come to pass.

Though his brother knights would surely note his absence, Tristan was not as confident their ability to find him. This place was unknown, with an unfamiliar person who at best was caring for him, but at worst was deceiving him with kindness to serve some malicious purpose.

For the time being, he decided he would go along with everything, so long as there was nothing more threatening than what had been presented thus far. No physical danger and at face value, the woman did not seem inclined to cause him harm.

Tristan would keep his guard up, but he decided to keep any active defense at bay, lest it unduly become offensive. There was still much of his predicament that was wholly unknown, and Tristan was not eager to make any rash decisions. Patience was the key that would serve him well, if he could keep hold of it.

. . .

Mitsuko was wary. She'd hoped with the man's return to consciousness there would be answers – explanations for his presence, the arrow wounds, the sword, him.

As it was, Mitsuko wasn't sure what to do. The man seemed dangerous, unfriendly at the very least. Her mind was splitting its focus between being cautious of him and being kind. In the three days he'd spent unconscious, Mitsuko had debated the possible courses of action available to her. Several musings had involved sending him back outside and locking her doors. Another line of thought contemplated tying or locking him up in the basement, should he prove to be violent when awake and aware. Mitsuko had plenty of time to decide. In the meantime she'd done what she could to clean the blood from his clothing and sword, and then had hidden them away in the basement.

Her end decision was perhaps not the best for her personal safety, but it was the one that left her with no moral guilt.

"Innocent until proven guilty, hey?" she'd said to Caes, and she thought the husky seemed to approve.

She'd thought it would have been a safe play, but she hadn't expected the complication of a language barrier. Multilingual she might have been, but it wasn't doing her a drop of good. Mitsuko knew she was more than a bit in over her head.

There wasn't much to do in the little cabin forest, most days being filled with relaxing activities that were more for her own state of mind than essential to the upkeep of basic living. Setting herself to the task of doodling or reading felt wrong in some way, as if instinct were telling her to do something meaningful or at least useful at the moment. Mitsuko knew that it had everything to do with the stranger's presence.

He watched her from by the fire, and though she never saw his gaze stray from the window, there was no doubt in her mind that she was being carefully monitored.

The man sat comfortably, uncaring of how hard the floor must have been and the pain that certainly accompanied his injuries. He'd been unsteady when moving earlier, which Mitsuko attributed to stiffness after unconsciousness and discovery of unpleasant wounds. She doubted that he was like that normally, that he was any less than the image of perfect grace.

Then she noted a particular stiffness in him, a tension in his muscles that was slight and unassuming, but unquestionably familiar to her. He was cold. Despite the flaming heat at his back, he was cold and for some reason unwilling to wrap himself in the numerous blankets on the floor in front of him. She didn't know if it was pride or a sense of reluctance to find help from a stranger that inhibited him, but Mitsuko figured it would take something more direct to sway his stoicism.

In the kitchen, Mitsuko rummaged about the fridge, searching for foods that could be made into something hot and filling. Finding only the leftovers of assorted vegetables, she settled for making soup and hoping that the man wasn't a picky eater.

How the situation would proceed, she didn't know. Everything about him was unknown, and it reeked of the danger that her family and teachers had always warned her about as a child.

"Don't trust strangers," they had said.

"What the hell was I supposed to do?" she muttered to herself, chopping the carrots with more force than necessary. She paused, relaxing her tight grip of the knife handle, before resuming at a calmer pace.

The woman let herself focus on the process of cooking, reluctant to think any further or deeper into the abnormality of her house guest. Perhaps food would at least get the man to stop glaring.

Mitsuko couldn't help wondering if this would be the beginning of an adventure story or a murder mystery.


	3. Chapter 3

Neither had spoken another word to the other, though he had heard the woman talk to her dogs. Despite his distrust of her and their situation, Tristan could not doubt the trusting and loyal connection between woman and wolf. It was because of this observation that Tristan allowed himself to accept food and drink when offered. He'd gone two days without either for fear of poisoning.

On the first day, she'd made soup, and he refused to touch it. The creamy aroma had made his mouth water, but he forced himself to remain as he was while the woman ate it herself and then put away the leftovers she wasn't able to finish. She had offered him water persistently throughout the second day, drinking half the cup first before offering it to him. Parched and in need of it he may have been, Tristan did not find reason to trust. The soup from the previous day had been offered to him as well, and when he refused it once more, the stranger woman glared at him with enough frustration that Tristan thought he might reach out to touch it in the air before him. Instead of eating the soup herself as he'd expected, she placed it on the table and began again in the kitchen.

Tristan dozed as she cooked, knowing that the woman was too focused on her task to take much notice of him. In the haze between wakefulness and oblivion, he was distantly aware of one of the wolves coming to lay by his side. The animal's warmth was pleasant and welcome in this frozen over hell. The knight woke suddenly, catching a gasp before it escaped him. A wet nose was pressed to his palm, brown wolf eyes looking at him calmly.

In the next moment, something was thrown at him, hitting his chest and then falling into his lap. Picking it up, Tristan found that it was a small loaf of bread, warm and smelling of herbs that could not possibly be grown in the snow season.

Black smoldering eyes stared at him, expectant and a touch angry. Without thought, he glanced a look at the beast next to him, who continued to watch him steadily. Tristan ripped a chunk of the bread and held it in front of the wolf's mouth. In an instant it was gone, and the wolf began nosing toward the rest of the bread. From the corner of his eye, the scout saw the woman sigh in exasperation, but gave no concern for the beast. Lightly pushing away the hungry animal, Tristan ate the bread, resisting the urge to consume it as the wolf had. Soft and slightly sweet, he did not taste any poisonous addition. Although he doubted the woman could have been so calm if a poisonous bread had been fed to her wolf.

Satisfied, she brought him the twice-rejected soup as well before returning to the long seat with a book and began to read. From her hair she pulled a smooth waxing stick that reminded Tristan of the styli Arthur often carried for writing on wax tablets around the fort. Tristan at times thought the stylus in his commander's hand was a sword for fighting a different kind of battle within the fort. Looking at the stylus-like object between the woman's fingers, Tristan noted that it was far sleeker than any of Arthur's. He also wondered at what it was made of, as its grey coloring looked nothing like any metal he'd seen.

Her hair fell in a dark waterfall far past her shoulders. Although her appearance still bothered him, and made him stare when she wasn't paying attention to him, he'd become accustomed to it. The strangeness was less shocking and outlandish to his eyes.

Tristan now counted thirteen days and twelve nights since his awakening in the snowy cabin with the stranger woman. In his mind he'd begun to call her Isolde. In his tribe's dialect, it meant "she who was gazed upon". He did not gaze at her, however he did spend a good amount of time watching her. At first it had been to make sure of her trust worthiness, careful that she would not kill him in an unguarded moment. Later it had become about understanding where he was. The immediate surroundings were useless. From the bizarre furnishings to the unrecognizable map on the wall, Tristan could not glean a single hint about what had happened to him. Isolde had shown him around the cabin, which had not helped him either. In fact, it served only to further his confusion. She had attempted to explain some of the things in the cabin through a variety of gestures, and to her credit Tristan sometimes understood a very general idea of what she'd tried to convey.

Isolde cooked, always just enough for the two of them. This process too was unfamiliar, as well as the food itself, however he questioned it less. Likely because he got to eat.

Four days ago, Isolde had returned his own clothing. Cleaned and mended as best as she could, but the shirts and long coat were thoroughly ruined. It hadn't helped that they'd had a few too many patches to begin with. A number of shirts and trousers were brought out for him when the woman had watched him inspecting her handiwork. The trousers were too loose and the shirts too tight, but Tristan was content with whatever layers of warmth were provided him. He doubted he would ever be used to the infernal cold. Even by the fire he could still feel the chill that had crept under his skin and settled there. Often he spent time wrapped in a blanket, to his embarrassment. Though Isolde did not seem to think anything of it, she did not ignore the observation and gave him thicker shirts.

The wounds he'd sustained from the woad fight still ached, and the arrow injuries pained him whenever unnecessarily disturbed; which was any time he did not want to be sitting or lying down. Tristan ignored what he thought to be a cracked rib or two, the twang of pain dull and insignificant compared to everything else that hurt. For the most part, he tended to his own wounds, cleaning and wrapping them as his sister had taught him many years ago. He had nothing for the pastes that he might have made at the fort, desolate as his surroundings were. Time healed the minor wounds well enough, leaving only the heavier hits he'd taken to bother him. With Isolde's help, despite his reservations, he re-bandaged the long chest wound properly, and the wrappings were a comfort to his ribs.

Her care was hesitant, and Tristan assumed that she did not know whether to quite trust him yet either. Rightfully so, he thought. He did nothing to gain her trust, but he noticed now that he'd also done nothing to create any misgivings. They'd fallen quickly into ease with one another.

Today she greeted him a with smile that was neither shy nor meek nor fearful. It did not reach out reluctantly, but was offered simply with a slice of bread and cheese. They ate in silence, as was usual. And as per the routine they'd formed, Isolde read through breakfast, wholly absorbed in whatever she'd taken off the shelf. Tristan observed her and thought about what in his life might have brought him to this point. Injured, separated from his brothers, and completely without plan to return to them. What had happened after the woads?

After eating, the woman left with one of the hounds. Tristan could not fathom why she would desire to go outside in such frigid weather, but he supposed that if she never went out he would be dead, frozen solid.

In that moment, Tristan realized that he did in fact trust this woman. Trusted her with more than not killing him when his back was turned. This woman who had rescued him and was keeping him under her care. He did not enjoy the thought of being kept by a person, nor the idea that he was indebted to that same person. But his life went on, and at the very least she was not Roman. He was still suspicious, wary of the number of unknown elements in his predicament. Isolde was an unknown as well, just not one that he concerned himself with too much. Mostly he was curious about her, her people, why she was so foreign. No immediate danger threatened him though, and so the knight allowed himself time to rest and recover.

At the fort he had not been one for the study of written works, none of the knights were fond of roman teachings. They had learned only what was needed; simple reading and writing to get by as Arthur's subordinates, but no one pushed for them to attain high education as Arthur or the officials of Rome had been taught. And so Tristan could read, rather easily though he had never challenged himself with anything more than a short message or report.

Arthur often spoke of Rome and her grand libraries, the edifices made beautiful by bounded knowledge held within. The volumes that lined the wall of the cabin was how Tristan imagined Arthur's Roman library. Ordered rows of books, varying in size and color, neat and likely organized in some specific way. Selecting two at random, Tristan sat down at the heavy wooden table where he and Isolde ate their meals. Briefly he wondered if she would mind his taking of her books, but upon opening them he could not make out any of its information, though the characters on the page were somewhat familiar. The images too gave no hint about the book's content. Lines and letters alongside symbols that held no value in Tristan's knowledge.

Sarmatian was a spoken language, rarely written, and constantly changing with the tribes. Her language was not purely oral, clearly. Never before had Tristan desired so much to be able to speak- to communicate with another. A learned woman who would surely have plenty of answers to satisfy his questions and curiosity and yet he had no way to ask.

The second book was a tome bound in leather, soft and wrinkled over the binding, from frequent use he supposed. Inside was different from the other book, its written lines much less uniform and messier than the previous. This, Tristan thought, was similar to the journals the knights' Latin instructor had kept. Their instructor, an old graying Roman, had explained that he needed to keep his mind sharp by detailing the world around him on the pages of his journal. Gawain, only just coming into his dropped voice at the time, joked that it was so that the old bastard could remember what he'd eaten for breakfast that morning.

Tristan was startled from his study by an unpleasant chill falling over him. He saw Isolde enter the cabin dragging behind her a tarp piled with wood. Standing and easily ignoring any pain felt in the face of a task in which he could be useful.

Isolde looked up as he approached, surprised and mildly disapproving. She said nothing though, and handed him the edge of the tarp she held and pointed to the box where she kept the wood by the fireplace. As Tristan set about moving the wood, the woman returned outside and shut the door, though not before the grey and black wolf rushed in. This one was named Argen, or so he thought. Isolde called the wolf-dogs with specific words, which which he'd taken to be names. Argen immediately went to the large bowl that was always filled with water for the two animals. The notion of giving water to the wolves indoors was odd to the scout. However it quickly became understandable when he remembered the weather outside and reasoned that any water would have been frozen.

The log box by the fire was the length of the long seat and only slightly lower. Cushions were placed on the box, for guests to sit Tristan assumed, though he did not know what guests might come to this cold isolated cabin. Putting the cushions aside as well as the thought, he lifted the box's lid and was surprised at the amount of empty space within. Isolde had minded the fire since his arrival, keeping it warm and well fed, so he had not noticed the impoverished wood stock. Of the remaining logs, Tristan's eye caught on one that was too perfectly chopped to have been split with the swing of an ax. He removed the unique log, tossing it gently onto the pile of blankets that was his bed, and quickly stacked the new firewood into the box.

Again the door of the cabin opened, bringing with it a cold draft of air. Soon Isolde was on the long seat, legs crossed and spreading a knit blanket over herself. Tristan came to sit beside her and felt her curious eyes on him as he examined the rectangular log. The cut was not perfect, neither entirely flat nor smooth. Turning it, he studied each face of the block, all alike and equally unassuming. Running his fingers against the grain of the wood, he felt a slight disturbance in its flow, different from the rest. A quick investigation revealed a slim, narrow valley down the length of the wood.

From his periphery, Tristan saw the stranger woman motion for the wood, and he handed it to her. Wedging her nails into the valley, she tentatively and cautiously pried the block apart. She said something in that unknown language of hers, an exclamation of astonishment. Inside the block of wood were four carved stones, each similar to the other with slight differences. A flash of recognition lit in Tristan's mind and he went to his ripped and ruined trousers that he'd folded and discarded by the window. He produced another black piece from one of his pockets, an heirloom of sorts. Isolde stared at him with confusion, and he could see the question she desperately wanted to ask in her eyes.

As the situation was, he had no way of explaining, and merely returned to her side and handed her the carved stone.

Isolde flinched, blood dripping from the cut made by the stone's sharp edge. Tristan went to the kitchen for a cloth, handing it to her once he sat down again in exchange for the bloody piece. She nodded, a thanks, and then went to take care of the injury. In his own hand the black fragment sliced across his fingertips, not deep enough to cause much pain, but it would itch by tomorrow as it healed.

Slick with the blood of two, the piece shone in the afternoon light. His grandmother had not known the origins of their dark stone, not even knowing that it was a part of a set. She had been a seer and the High Elder of their tribe, knowledgeable about everything. Or so it had been to Tristan, who frequently came to her with questions. On her deathbed, she had bestowed upon him the stone, stressing heavily that it would be the most important thing in his life, that he would have no life without it. Tristan had promised to always have it on his person no matter what and posed an endless number of questions about the stone. That night, when the stars had shone their brightest, his grandmother had passed. In the morning the Romans came for him and two of his younger cousins. Tristan had not doubted his grandmother's words, but he did wonder what life the stone could bring him if its first act was to make him a slave.

Tristan stood, unwilling to continue the path his thoughts were taking.

Suddenly the world spun, a searing pain blazing up from his fingers that traveled furiously up his arm and spread like a forest fire through the rest of him. He groaned, falling to his knees and struggled to breathe through the violent assault. There was ringing and screaming and roaring loud in his ears. Through the flames he felt something tearing through every strand of his being. Nothing was untouched; his skin, his bones, his thoughts, his memories... How he yearned for the cold now, for ice to freeze this invasive fire.

Eternity could have passed by the time Tristan realized he was on the ground, flat on the ground and limbs spread out around him. Perhaps he had fallen into unconsciousness, but he thought that unlikely. Black fire that could only be described as evil had brought anguish, torturing him in a way that the knight never imagined possible, persisting until it stopped without warning. Its departure stranded Tristan in a foggy aftershock that robbed him of any real thought.

Carefully rising, Tristan took stock of his surroundings. Save for the in the hearth, the room was dark. The sun has set, so two hours at least, Tristan deduced. Nothing was broken and nothing indicated at any sort of attack or intrusion. His hand, once examined, was healed. Five thin pink lines where the puzzle had cut him were all that remained.

The brown and white wolf was by him, watching over with what Tristan may have taken as concern. The wolf dog rubbed its ear against the knight's thigh, then bounded hastily toward the bedroom. Tristan followed, wondering where the stranger woman was. He did not think that she would have left him lying on the ground as he had fallen for hours without taking some sort of action. If he'd learned anything about her in the fortnight they'd spent in common company, it was that being hospitable was instinctive to her. At the very least she would have thrown a blanket over her, familiar with his distaste for the cold.

The number of steps to Isolde's bedchamber were few, and it took even less time to find the woman herself. On the floor, much like he must have been, Isolde lay in a crumpled unconscious heap. You felt it too.

Tristan knelt by her, watching the shallow but steady breaths that escaped her. The skin of her hands were cold, and he noted that any wound caused by the puzzle was only indicated by a number of thin pink lines where damage had been done.

Argen and the brown wolf-dog waited at Isolde's head, patiently expecting him to act. He sighed, realizing that it was probably too often that he relied on the presumed advice of animals. Sarmatians respected and cherished their horses as they might their own children, and the scout had recently found a hawk that had taken a liking to him, but perhaps Lancelot was right and he needed more human interaction in his life. Nevertheless, he moved as prompted by the beasts and lifted Isolde into his arms. He strained against the pain of his injuries, though they merely throbbed compared to the fiery torment that he'd endured some short minutes ago.

Gently he placed her on the bed, draping the thick blanket over her once he'd straightened out her body. Satisfied that she was comfortable and warm, Tristan was left to ponder what the hell was happening to his life.


End file.
